Most women don’t kill their babies and leave them in dumpsters. Most men don’t rape drunk women, even while drunk themselves. So why are men taught NOT to rape, but women aren’t taught not to kill? I call bullshit.

Way to go, Canada! Men’s human rights activists are back in the news in Canada for another “offensive” poster campaign in which all women are painted with a brush that applies to only a few women.

Sound familiar?

The poster not only highlights the utterly insulting absurdity of the original “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign, but also points to a legally enshrined form of discrimination against men in Canada: only female persons can be convicted of the crime of murdering their newborn children, and just to rub a little salt in the wound, the poor wee dears are not to be sentenced to anything exceeding five years. The babies, of course, are sentenced to death regardless of their gender, but that’s such a trifle, no?

Obviously men don’t lactate, but are their minds disturbed by the birth of a new child? The law says “fuck you we don’t care if you have a penis and kill a baby you are going down”. Science says, well, actually, men do undergo some fairly dramatic and measureable hormonal changes following the birth of a child, and if hormonal changes are mitigating circumstances that permit female persons to be convicted of the lesser offence of infanticide, then why aren’t those changes used to explain why male persons might kill newborn babies?

Misandry? Actual, literal discrimination on the basis of gender alone? Pffft. It’s not a real thing.

But let’s get back to those posters. The original posters were intended to urge “men to heed their consciences and not take advantage of incapacitated or unwilling partners”. But do men do this? What is the evidence?

When researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of Washington observed young people’s behavior in bars, they found that the man’s aggressiveness didn’t match his level of intoxication. There was no relationship.

So wait, you mean men can get fully and completely loaded, just shit-faced drunk and they still won’t rape anybody? Well my heavens, how can that be? Who, pray tell, is doing all this raping then?

Sexual predators? You mean rapists? You mean it’s rapists who rape women and not just random guys in bars who have had too much to drink?

Don’t Be That Guy – a behavioural marketing campaign sends the message that sex without consent is sexual assault. We are sending a visual message to men between the ages of 18 and 25, graphically demonstrating their role in ending alcohol facilitated sexual assaults.

Men between the ages of 18 and 25? And where is your evidence that men between the ages of 18 and 25 are particularly prone to alcohol facilitated sexual assaults? According to RAINN, the average age of a rapist is 31 years old.

You’re not even aiming at the right target, assholes.

And even if you were in the right ballpark demographically, it still wouldn’t excuse the accusation that every male person in the demographic needs to be learned up about how not to get drunk and rape, because most men aren’t rapists. Even the wingnuts at Occidental College agree that most rapes on college campuses are committed by serial rapists.

So explain to me again why all men between the ages of 18-25 should be smeared with the rapist label and treated as if they are latent monsters who only need that one last Budweiser to release the Great Rape Monster lurking within their twisted, maimed pathetic male person souls?

What would the reaction be if we treated all women as baby killers until they prove otherwise? What would it be like to have every prenatal healthcare clinic feature posters reminding women not to murder their babies?

Disgusting.

Cruel.

Demonizing.

Unfair.

Some might call it hate speech.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the whole concept of hate speech. The legal definition of hate speech in Canada focuses on the effects, rather than the intention of the speaker, which is all fine and dandy.

“The repugnancy of the ideas being expressed is not sufficient to justify restricting the expression, and whether or not the author of the expression intended to incite hatred or discriminatory treatment is irrelevant. The key is to determine the likely effect of the expression on its audience, keeping in mind the legislative objectives to reduce or eliminate discrimination,” they decided.

I’m pro-life for a number of reasons, but particularly because I teach elementary school. I see kindergartners and don’t understand how someone could think it would have been okay to kill all of them five years prior. If that happened now, it would be murder and rightfully so. Do it when kids are younger and even more vulnerable? Pffft, a woman’s right.

Lean Back

The root of the “all men are (potential) rapists” theory comes from evolutionary biology that posits rape as a “mating strategy”. Now that some science books stating as much have made their way into the mainstream, expect this theory to gain even more traction.

I’ve always been of the opinion that neuro-typical men do not rape, only psychopaths do. Since psychopaths are a statistical minority (or are they?), the only rape threat women (and other men) and children face come from a few sociopaths running lose in society (or running lose in prison).

But evolutionary biology says otherwise. It says rape is a neuro-typical mating strategy!

Ferrum Itzal

The problem with that evolutionary theory is that it’s all supposition with zero facts to support it. Having studied early human and proto-human stuff for more years than I care to count, the single greatest danger I have seen is researchers projecting their own shit onto what is just a static bit of organic matter.

To give you an example of how ‘untruths’ can become cannon, consider the ‘out of africa’ theory that everybody learns in school. It’s accepted that man evolved in africa and then migrated outwards into the rest of the world even though there is zero proof for this theory. Yes, the oldest hominid remains have been found in africa, but that only means that the oldest remains have been found in africa. It is entirely possible and plausible that the earliest hominids evolved in indonesia and migrated in to africa.

It’s as sound a theory as the OoA model, but it’s not politically correct to even suggest such a thing.

Jason Wexler

My understanding is that I am still being moderated, so JB I understand and accept that if you want to delete this off topic response… however I feel it is incumbent upon me to respond to the misunderstanding of science that Ferrum Itzal has just provided us.

Out of Africa is not just evidenced by the oldest known fossils to date being found in the Ouldavi Gorge but also by the temporal radiation out of Kenya into other parts of Africa and eventually the Middle East and further afield. The oldest fossils being discovered outside of Africa confine themselves to a timeline of African origin and exodus, so for instance no fossils older than 1.4 million years in the Middle East and no European, Indian or Chinese fossils that predate Middle Eastern fossils. There is also clear evidence of morphological and genetic similarity and evolution within the fossil groups; and paleogentic studies show that modern extant humans are both definitely related to African Australopithecines as are all currently discovered hominid fossils outside of Africa, we also show greater genetic affinity for African apes than we do with the Asian apes.

The next point which perhaps should have been the first point is that you seem to misunderstand the meaning of proof in science. That may be because science doesn’t deal in terms of proof and certainly not proof as it is commonly understood. Science deals in ever improving approximations of reality, theories are best thought of as explanations that fit the data we currently have. Therefore it makes sense to claim that Out of Africa is the origin of humanity since the data we have agrees with it. If and when we find different better data we will update our models to reflect the new information.

This is why it is “dangerous” for people to fetishize science and treat it as an ideology, in addition to probably not understanding the topic to begin with, if someone adopts an orthodoxy for any scientific claim, they will invariably end up with egg on their face even if only in historical retrospect, as new and better data comes out which supersedes or corrects the fetishists orthodoxy. That said, it is best to treat science as a process and not a thing, science ought to be a verb; that science provides a guess albeit an extremely educated guess does not mean that we know nothing and can claim anything to be true. Yes it is possible that hominids first developed in Indonesia or even the Americas and then found their way to Africa and spread back out, but we have no evidence for that hypothesis.

As to the evolutionary psychology (Lean back, suggested it was evolutionary biology) which treats rape as a mating strategy, that comes down to the problem of applying human ideas and concepts outside of humans. Sex in nearly all species (with some notable exceptions) would qualify as rape if humans did it and not just the regrettable sex kind of rape, but the violent oppressive kind of rape that we all agree is terrible. Complicating this more is that the idea of rape being something that happens to what we call the victim is a new understanding of the word, which has an origin as a crime committed against the man who was responsible for the woman, the rapist has stolen her purity, which was the property of the man who was responsible for her.

If we understand or accept that rape comes out of that kind of context we realize it isn’t a biological or physiological phenomenon but rather a cultural phenomenon. Lean Back is therefore probably right that neuro-typical males don’t commit rape, because we are a social species and rape is understood to be a bad thing, worthy of removal from the society by either death or ostracism. I recognize that I am skirting close to feminist theory here, I would suggest that the difference is that rape being understood as a cultural phenomenon means that what constitutes rape can change, “rape culture” as feminists who promote that idea understand it is a result of hewing to a definition of rape that is far outside of the mainstream right now, my suspicion is that adopting their preferred definition is unlikely because it makes reproduction impossible or very unlikely. However if I am wrong future historians and liberals will look back at this and shake their head in disgust that we could be so backwards and wrong… in the same way we do with our historical ancestors who promoted slavery, xenophobia, war, homophobia etc… and of course their flagrant disregard for rape as we understand it today.

Ferrum Itzal

Excellent reply, Jason. You’re right that there is a strong suggestion that we evolved out of africa, but the point I was trying to make is that we are accepting as facts that which we cannot be certain of. A theory is presumed to be a law. While the evidence is very strong, it is still a theory. It has not been proven conclusively, and likely can never be proven so.

Sadly, getting egg on the face isn’t a deterrent when it comes to fraudulent or wrong information being published, and the damage caused by said postulation can be serious..

“As to the evolutionary psychology (Lean back, suggested it was evolutionary biology) which treats rape as a mating strategy, that comes down to the problem of applying human ideas and concepts outside of humans.”

That’s what I said – projection. Only it’s not just applying human ideas outside the family, so to speak, but applying modern ideas and concepts to humans in other times.

Jason Wexler

Ferrum,

I am not sure I’ve ever met anyone who has confused theory for law. It is more often the case that if people are confused by theory they conflate it with random, wild, uneducated guess. I suppose a case could be made that some science fetishists in elevating their favorite theories or science in general to the point of orthodox holy writ are treating those ideas as immutable absolutes which could be consistent with a popular but unscientific definition of “law”.

You seem to be demonstrating some fluency in what theory is supposed to mean in science and then you make flagrant use of the cringe inducing phrase “still a theory” which is reminiscent of “just a theory”. I’ve never been entirely certain how best to respond to “just a theory” proponents and I am at an even bigger loss as to how I should I respond when it’s uncertain what it is you are implying or saying by suggesting “just a theory”.

How sad is it that 1984 and Animal Farm describe the lunacy going on these days so well? They were supposed to be cautionary tales, not instruction manuals!

FuzzieWuzzie

The4re is an ancient definition of rape that may lend some credence to to the evolutionary theory. Women taken as prizes of war fall under that ancient definition. The victors would take them home with them and have them make sandwiches, among other things.
This all stopped when Gaius Marius converted the Roman legions from citizen-soldiers to professional. Legionaires were forbidden to marry, as this would be a hinderance to deployment and cause desertion.

As the article even says, “But this does demonstrate an important point–people often want the Bible to say certain things…”

That’s projection. Even looking at the words in a literal sense, we have no way of telling how widespread the idea or practice was, or how much of the language has been corrupted over the years.

This is no different than how people believe one of the ten commandments says, “Thou shall not kill.”, when the actual hebrew/aramaic script on the scrolls says, “Thou shall not murder.”

Is Point 1 an accurate translation? If so, is this practice widespread or merely the recounting of something mythical like the concept of one-breasted Amazons? Did the women of the time really object to this practice, or was it an accepted part of life and they liked knowing that they would become wives to the more powerful male?

Rape is defined as non-consensual sexual contact and is a construct of the modern era. We cannot apply our idea of non-consensual to people of the past, no matter how reasonable it might seem to be. The women of the day might have been very happy to
be absorbed into the cultures of the strong warriors. Are female chimps and apes “raped” by the new alpha male when he takes over the pack?

I wonder if the Canadians copied the swedes or if it is the other way around. The swedish statute says (my translation):

Would a woman kill her child at birth or at a time when she, due to the delivery, is in a distressed condition or suffer hardship, she is to be sentenced for infanticide to maximum 6 years in prison.

A man who kills his child is sentenced for murder or homicide which gives a sentence of minimum 6 years and maximum 18 years or lifetime. (“maximum 18 years or lifetime” might seem contradictory, but though you can get life, you can’t get 20 years, the longest limited sentence you can get is 18 years.

The law about infanticide doesn’t stipulate any age limit for the child, but established practice by court is 7 months. So a mother can murder her half year old child and get away with a mitigated sentence in sweden.

What’s really absurd is that a man who assists the mother in her infanticide is not sentenced as an accessory to infanticide, but as an accessory to murder/homicide, and potentially can get 18 years/life. (I’m no lawyer or expert on court matters, so I have really no clue what is the established practice, but an educated guess is that a male accessory get a more severe sentence than the female perpetrator.)

Canada is far from alone in its delirium, if you want to see insanity at its acme, turn your eyes to the east and behold sweden in its moldy decadent ex-glory.

Rapists gonna rape. There isn’t a single guy in Canada who’s going to see these advertisements and say “huh, I didn’t know rape was bad, I should stop raping people!”

The idea that this could happen is simply ludicrous. So ludicrous, in fact, that I’ve become convinced that these posters are more about social conditioning than they are rape prevention. Slowly and surely develop the meme that all men are rapists, over a few generations, and you’ll even have the men, themselves, believing it.

Or at least that’s the idea.

As for the discussion about historical vs. contemporary, there really is no comparison. If you go back far enough, to when humans weren’t much more than animals, it is reasonable to expect that every sexual encounter that ever occurred would fall under the legal definition of rape-rape today. Not even “drunk, regretted it later, rape.”

If you want to get into a discussion about historical or societal context, you’ll get locked into a days-long discussion so full of gray area that you’ll accomplish nothing. The discussion is centered around modern-day, western society. Period. Leave any other discussion out of it, or it will cloud the issue at hand to the point to where we won’t even be discussing anything close to the intended topic.

Rape, as a crime, hardly exists in many middle eastern countries, for example, and it is not uncommon for the victim to be punished for “tempting” her rapist. It’s an entirely different context.

We’re social animals. We live by social norms, and to live outside those social norms is a sign of atypical behavior, whatever the norms may be at any given period. Therefore, a man who rapes women in western society in modern times is outside the norm. It’s that simple.

The (U.S.) Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that between 1995 and 2010 the incidence of rape has declined by over half (nearly 60%). In 2010 BoJ shows there were some 270,000 sexual assaults (their definition includes completed rapes (143,000), attempted rapes (89,000) and threatened rapes (37,000–yeah, I know, it’s the same thing, right?)

Since there’s the claim that most rapes aren’t reported, let’s be generous and double that figure to 540,000 “rapes.”

Now, in 2010, there were 113,836,190 men over the age of 18 in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau). Let’s assume that we can ignore the 12-18-year-old boys. Let’s also assume that the over 65 crowd isn’t doing much raping in their old age, so we can leave out the 19,362,960 men over age 65. That leaves us with a potential population of rampaging rapists between 18 and 65 of 94,473,230.

So by my calculations (and please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) those 540,000 rapes, assuming a separate individual rapist per rape, were committed by 0.6% of the male population of the United States in 2010.

Or, in other words, by some completely inexplicable–perhaps magical–means, 99.4% of American men managed to get through the whole year without raping anyone, and all this without a poster campaign.

I really don’t know how they did it…

Jason Wexler

You should also factor out the nearly 6% of men that Williams Institute tells us is gay, mostly gay bi guys, gay but don’t call me that guys. Also you were probably ungenerous by only doubling the number of rapes give them at least a factor of 5, but then recognize that according to last nights Criminal Minds repeat a third of rapes are committed by serial rapists. So the potential population of rapists is 88,804,836 to commit approximately 1.35 million rapes but limited to about a million rapists, meaning that 1.13% did and 98,87% managed to do just fine. The other fun we can have with these numbers is trying to get to the 1 in 4 women will be raped number, especially if one takes account of the factors that lead to women being raped such as age and attractiveness as well as location in order for 1 in 4 to be true only 1 in 20 would be reported.

Jason Wexler

Or we could be statistically honest and just calculate straight up values based on the verifiable data available and find 99.76% of men managed not to rape in 2010.

You’re gonna get burned at the stake,
Burned at the stake,
Burned at the stake
You’re gonna get burned at the stake
Because you said a true

😛

Jason Wexler

I’ll wear my fire retardant cloths…

My first published scholarly paper was called “Beer, Bread and Boobs: The Origin of Civilization” (I retitled it “Beer, Bread and Brothels” for the 10th Anniversary). I founded a gay club and an atheist club at a conservative Christian university. I went to a Star Trek convention in a tshirt that said screw the boys Janeway is best, and I just spent two years commenting on an Atheism+ blog. They whomever they are don’t have anything I haven’t heard before so bring it.

Lost Sailor – one thing that your numbers don’t account for is repeat offenders, which most rapists are. Your rough math only works ifyou assume that every single rape was committed by a different person, and no man raped more than once. Therefore, you must conclude that your 99.4% number is wrong, since it is probably even bigger than that. Realistically, we’re probably talking about 99.9% of men, with the 0.1% committing multiple rapes a piece.

Jason, ” I would suggest that the difference is that rape being understood as a cultural phenomenon means that what constitutes rape can change, “rape culture” as feminists who promote that idea understand it is a result of hewing to a definition of rape that is far outside of the mainstream right now, my suspicion is that adopting their preferred definition is unlikely because it makes reproduction impossible or very unlikely.”

– How would adopting their preferred definition of “no means no” and “yes means yes”, or simply put, “obvious and enthusiastic consent make “reproduction impossible or very unlikely”?

Jason Wexler

No means no and yes means yes isn’t a problem until of course you remember that sometimes yes means no, especially when they change their mind after the fact. The upshot is that the most extreme version of “rape culture” theory posits that sex and rape are synonymous.

I think that this “why I need feminism” meme post does an excellent job of demonstrating just how out of touch some feminists are and just what the end game seems to be. There is also the rapist check list particularly items 3, 12, 13, 21, 45 and 46 also possibly 47 though I could go either way on that one and yes I agree or mostly agree with the rest of the items.

Does that mean a woman can not only be raped without physical contact, but without knowing she was? Conversely can a man rape a woman without knowing he is?

Lean Back

Ferrum, “Rape is defined as non-consensual sexual contact and is a construct of the modern era. We cannot apply our idea of non-consensual to people of the past, no matter how reasonable it might seem to be. The women of the day might have been very happy to
be absorbed into the cultures of the strong warriors. Are female chimps and apes “raped” by the new alpha male when he takes over the pack?

Conjecture, supposition, projection…. very bad things.”

– But you yourself are conjecturing that “the women of the day *might* have been very happy to be absorbed into the cultures of the strong warriors.”

Ferrum Itzal

No, I’m not conjecturing, I’m just throwing out an idea that illustrates a different way of how they might have thought. I’m not saying that it happened, only that it’s a different way for us to look at it.

Interestingly, I mentioned this thread to a friend of mine who asked a very simple question and got me thinking. He asked, “Where are the stories of these captured women killing their captors somewhere down the road? They just watched this barbarian slaughter their loved ones, and we can see the stories of them becoming house slaves or wives with free reign of the house, but no mention of them taking a kitchen knife to the guy that killed their brother or father a year ago. Why?”

I hadn’t considered that, but it does make for an interesting train of thought. According to my modern thinking, you would never be able to trust that person let alone give them access to a weapon they might use against you, or use to take their own life. The idea that such raids were commonplace seems to indicate that the prisoners never presented a threat to their capturers. Why? Why did the women simply give up? Even if it meant their own life, why not at least try to avenge your family? What was going on in their minds?

patriarchal landmine

women murdering their children is actually more common than rape.

feeriker

Yes. I’m really surprised this isn’t pointed out to the rape fixators more often than it is.

Lean Back

““Where are the stories of these captured women killing their captors somewhere down the road? They just watched this barbarian slaughter their loved ones, and we can see the stories of them becoming house slaves or wives with free reign of the house, but no mention of them taking a kitchen knife to the guy that killed their brother or father a year ago. Why?””

Tell him to google “jauhar”. They didn’t kill their aggressors, rather they killed themselves.

In India, yes. I don’t think that necessarily addresses the entirety of his question, since India is only one small subcontinent in a much larger world.

Not that I agree with the comment the person made. A “war trophy” woman/slave was subject to things that most people typing on a keyboard today likely couldn’t understand.

Stockholm Syndrome is a real thing, and it happens without the express consent of the person it happens to. It is a basic survival response.

Men that were enslaved stayed enslaved, in general, also, no matter what atrocities the slave master had committed against him and his family. The reason we hear about slave revolts in history class isn’t because they were so common, but rather, so extraordinarily UNCOMMON throughout history.

Jessie

Hi, JB!!

I absolutely love your blog, I just discovered it a couple of hours ago and I am absolutely in love with it!! 🙂 I am SO glad to find someone that speaks sense on the internet, that is hard to find these days!

I just had one question: I myself am 100% pro-life, but I was wondering about your stance on this issue. I know it might not be the same as mine, but I just wanted to get a better idea. Hope to hear from you!

Lean Back

Goober, I’ve personally heard more than one Muslim argue that “war booty” women had great lives and preferred to be with “handsome and viral” Muslim warlords than with their own husbands, sons, brothers and fathers killed at the hands of those warlords.

How anyone can rationalize such bullsh*t is beyond me.

No consideration whatsoever for the concepts of love, family, and basic humanness.

I doubt very much that anyone spouting that nonsense actually believed it in the slightest, at least on a subconscious, “brutally honest with yourself” level.

The same goes for any propaganda. yeah, you’ll have the occasional ‘true believer” that buys into the BS, but most people only pretend to buy into it because it supports their world view in some way or another.

War booty women (and men – let’s not forget that men were enslaved just as often as women as war prizes) were mostly just perfect examples of Stockholm syndrome in action. They may very well have bought into the propaganda lines, themselves, but only as a survival/coping mechanism and nothing more.

When you were enslaved in a hostile land, you either fell into lockstep and were a good slave to your master, or you died. Those were your options. It isn’t even like you could escape – how do you walk out of a hostile land when you don’t even know where you are or which direction to go? Am I in Turkey? Or Iran? Or Saudi Arabia?

Do I even know where those places are? Geography outside of your sphere of influence was a pretty rare bit of knowledge for people to have throughout most of history, so even if they knew that they were in Saudi Arabia – what then? Is home north of here? Or south? How far?

How do i get food? Water? I don’t speak the language. I’ve got nothing but the rags on my back.

I know that it’s supposed to be virile, but the typo made me laugh so much. I was envisioning women seeking men who had gotten lots of clicks on their youtube channel about raping women, and then things just got stupid in my head. Viral men seen as desirable, LOL, could be taken in so many directions.

Lean Back

“War booty women (and men – let’s not forget that men were enslaved just as often as women as war prizes) ”

– And raped as well!

I’ve heard it said that the USA is the only country on the planet where more men are raped than women because of our massive and ever-expanding Prison Industrial Complex, so rape of men is happening right here and now in our “free democracy based on Judeo-Christian values”.

Then of course regarding slavery there’s also the issue of Human Trafficking and its often said there are more slaves now than in the days of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade!!!

I can imagine that the men, women and children who were “war booty” back in the day (and now) are just too shocked, devastated and depressed to “fight back”.

They would live the rest of their lives out as empty shells. As ghosts.